


Bad Copy

by DivineVarod



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Cassandra - Freeform, Closeted Character, Creativity, Cyrano references, Depression, Flashbacks, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Pete part 2, Poetry, Post-Episode: s08e03 Back in the Red Part 3, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Red Dwarf 8, Self-Sacrifice, Slash, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 19:52:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7236220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineVarod/pseuds/DivineVarod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Rimmer bit his nail. How could this have happened to him? He? He had to woo the man he loved more than anything in the universe for someone else? For a man he'd resented from the moment he met him?</em>
</p><p>---<br/>But if he did ... maybe Lister would be happy.<br/>What did he have to lose ... except the love of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "My Rimmer"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Rimmer is discharged from the Canaries Lister makes sure the rest doesn't last long.

Arnold J. Rimmer followed Dave Lister back to their cell, shaking his head in wonder.  
After six hard weeks things had gone a lot better than he expected. But feeling exhaustion creeping over him with every step he took in the military grey hallway he was reminded that it had been tough, very tough.

\---

Four months earlier.

-

His nerves shattered after one too many Canary missions and faced with the endless bleakness of life in jail Rimmer felt as if he was falling apart. He felt constantly tired, nothing could cheer him up and some days– most days - simply getting out of bed was too much of an effort. Often, when there were no missions, he just didn't and slept the day away. 

Punctuality, reports, his families drilling, Space Corp directives, they had all lost their meaning, his mind and psyche feeling like one giant raw nerve. All he wanted was to be left in peace. He just wanted no-one to see him ... cry.

Canary expeditions became a living hell, for the anxious Arnold as well as the team. Rimmer would start hyperventilating and panicking before he and Lister had even left their jail and shake his way through the mission, barely able to speak in coherent sentences. Upon their return he would often crash and erupt in complete hysteria, forcing Lister to call a warden to sent up a sedative from medibay.

Rimmer knew that something was wrong, how could he not? One mission the panic and fear became so overwhelming Kristine Kochanski had to break cover and run over to drag him to their hideout: he had frozen on the spot, shaking so much he could not move. All members of the Dwarf Posse had to take it in turn to hold their upset team member and sooth him while still trying to do their job. Lister had been cross with him that evening, saying he was becoming a liability. Rimmer was stung by that: it wasn't his fault. He didn't ask for his body to betray him like that, did he?  
The next day he asked the wardens if he could talk to someone, get some help. But it was refused and Rimmer's suffering continued.

In fact, the prison wardens ignored Rimmer's pleas for professional help for quite some time, being sure the jittery inmate was simply trying to get out of his missions.

Eventually it was Captain Hollister himself who had to issue the order for Rimmer to be given immediate psychological help when one afternoon an exploding light bulp scared the former second technician so much he grabbed hold of the Captain in blind fear and refused to let him go for more than thirty minutes.

After several sessions Rimmer was diagnosed with extreme anxiety, depression and mild PTSD. It was obvious that sending him on more Canary expeditions would be dangerous for him as well as everyone else on the ship and with that he was finally released of his duties as a Canary.

Constant anxiety had also left the former second technician with a debilitating chronic fatigue so he was ordered to take a few days of bedrest which he took gratefully. Left to his own devices Arnold Rimmer would have crawled into his bed to never get up again. Unfortunately the relief was short lived.

\---

Lister couldn't stand this new version of Rimmer who spent most of the time in their jail in bed hidden underneath a blanket often saying he felt too ill and too depressed to even get dressed on the rare occasions he did venture outside. Shuffling around the brig in his pyjamas with tangled hair and a slowly increasing beardgrowth he cut a sad lonely figure, a shadow of the crisp and clean cut man Lister had spent centuries with.

Unbeknownst to Rimmer, Lister took it upon himself to visit the Captain's office and asked what duties Rimmer could do to replace his Canary missions. He wanted him out there and active. Lister was given a list of duties and promptly signed Rimmer up as organiser and writer of the yearly “Prison Revue”. Partly because he knew deep down Rimmer had artistic abilities, but mainly because it meant extra privileges for the creative talent and their cell mate.

“You signed me up for what?” Rimmer asked in horror while hiding deeper underneath his blanket. Why would Lister sign him up for anything? Why couldn't he leave him alone? He just wanted to sleep. Was that too much to ask? He wasn't harming anyone, was he?

Lister tore away his blanket and stared at him insistently.

“Look, I just don't want you laying around here all the time. Ya have to do something, and I thought you'd prefer it over peeling potatoes or cleaning toilets.”

“Listy, I'm ill. All I want to do is sleep and forget.”

“You can't sleep all day Rimmer and you know it. What do you do when you're awake? Thinking. And what do you think about? Your problems.”

Deep down Rimmer knew this was true. But he wasn't certain if this idea would help keep his anxiety at bay. He'd always been scared of getting in touch with his artistic side and doing so in a prison surrounding scared him even more. He had to direct and write for a team of inmates? How was he going to do that? If no one respected his authority outside of the brig, how would he ever get those strong, often violent prisoners to listen to him? Why did Lister always get him into these impossible situations? How had he even known about his creative side?

“My Rimmer had started reading for fun and wrote a lot of poems once we lived in Starbug. Meeting Legion had “stirred it in him”, he said.”

“My Rimmer”? Rimmer flinched. That was him, he was that Rimmer, damn it! The same person just in an earlier phase of his life. Lister often used “my Rimmer” to talk about the man he'd lived with for the last few years. It was difficult for the man living with Lister now. He was supposed to know things that Lister had told the other, but obviously did not know them. He was often  
confused by the amount of knowledge Lister had about him. And he was often unfavourably compared to his predecessor.

It is hard for everyone to grow up being told you're not good enough. The hurt, the self doubt, the self loathing. Then to be told you're a bad version of yourself on top of that was just adding insult to injury and Rimmer begun to feel more worthless every day.  
In many ways Rimmer felt like a low rent second class copy of a painting and was certain Lister felt he was too. He often saw a look of disdain and disappointment when Lister wasn't aware Rimmer knew he was looking at him.

Yes Lister was always “sort of” nice to him, but Rimmer often felt it was more to do with habit – having been close to his alternate – than it had with liking him for who he was. The more he heard about “other Rimmer” the more he wished he'd never been revived at all. The camaraderie Lister hinted at, the growth, the friendship. All things he had never known, all things he longed for more and more. To earn Lister's friendship, to make it past being a “bad copy”.


	2. Kindered Spirits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rimmer remembers his first day in jail and meets his Nemesis.

Feeling he had already disappointed Lister, developing PTSD – (his original version had become a Space Hero, for goodness sake!) he decided he _would_ take on the challenge of the “prison revue”.  
His first action was to initiate a brainstorm team which (naturally) consisted of him, Lister, Kryten, Cat and Kochanski. The only people in the brig he knew that possessed more than one brain cell.  
The result was Rimmer growing a deeper bond with the people “other Rimmer” had lived with, but still having no real clue of what to do.

In the end it was decided that Rimmer would write a short farce and then the Posse and any willing prisoners could sign on to do short sketches or songs for the rest of the night. Lister would take care of the music, Cat the costumes. Kryten would help with the sets while Kochanski would assist Rimmer with writing, editing and directing.

Write a farce ... easier said than done. In his depressed state jokes and sketches were the last thing Rimmer could think of. So instead of writing a fun short he found himself writing endless black poems and prose about the darkness in his mind and unrequited love for someone he could never dare name.

Kristine Kochanski was temporally discharged from her Canary duties too, to help Rimmer with the play. She felt sorry for the man when they sat in a private cell to brainstorm. She could see that he was clearly in no mood to be funny.  
She had been reluctant to work with him, at first, as she was still confused as to what he really wanted from her. During the Cassandra debacle he had made a big spectacle of wanting to go to bed with her but had made not one remark since then.

Rimmer turned scarlet when she brought it up and begun to apologise profusely.

“Oh. I'm so sorry about that whole affair Kristine. I ... I can't imagine what you must think of me. I have no idea why I acted that way. I have no excuse ...”

The big, sad, hazel eyes that stared at her were so full of genuine regret she quickly accepted the apology to spare him more pain. But her question seemed to have opened a floodgate inside of the man and he couldn't stop talking.

“I don't know what's wrong with me. Everything is so ... jumbled up in my mind. Even before we got here. That whole computer simulation. I ... took the sexual magnetism virus there ... hoping it would make me who I wanted to be, make people like me but ... It was awful. The sex ... I ... I hated it. What does it say about you if a sexual fantasy feels like abuse? Then that incident when we got here ...” Kochanski swallowed almost audible when Rimmer brought this up. What Lister had done to Rimmer the day they were sent to prison was incredibly cruel, dangerous and beyond stupid. When she closed her eyes she could still see him being carried out of the prisoner area. She was certain that whatever had happened there was at the root of his depression and PTSD. Rimmer had obviously tried to repress it for a long time, but the cracks were beginning to show.

Still Rimmer wasn't finished with his apologies and explanations.

“I ... I asked you to help me, nothing else. I promise. I'm ...” He was quiet for a moment, then added. “I'm not sure I can cope.”

She looked at him and saw the deep overwhelming sadness that seemed to completely encompass him.

“Arnold ... the ... thing that happened to you on that day ... do you want to talk about it? It could help ...”

Rimmer shook his head. “I ... I can't not yet ...”

He shivered and fell silent. Softly she took his hand “don't worry. I'm here for you.” She knew she meant it as in that moment, she felt a connection. He felt it too, it seemed, as he relaxed and almost gave her a smile.  
Then, maybe as evidence he trusted her, he showed her what he had written. Kochanski was amazed at the dark and strange poetry and prose he had written. The man was obviously talented, but clearly tortured as well. She wondered who it was he loved so strongly and deeply.

“Oh, that's beautiful, Arnold.” She smiled at him. She felt relief seeing a small sparkle in his eyes upon hearing her praise. Then it faded just as quickly. “In no way suitable for the brig, though. Is it?”  
“Don't be so hard on yourself, Arnold. You're talented. When you get out you should do something with that. Who cares about the bloody revue?” She sure didn't.

She heard a sad, choked, little sniffle, and looked up. Rimmer sat in front of her looking utterly miserable.

“Lister does ... I just ... I'm just ... I'm trying so hard to be ...”

“Don't finish that thought, Arnold. I understand. It's not your fault.”

From that moment on Rimmer had a friend and confident in jail. Kochanski knew all about depression and was as lost as he was in a world where things were the same but different. She could understand his frustrations of not being who people expected you to be and was a great comfort.

One thing he did not tell her, though: who his poems were for. He was certain he would never tell that to anyone.

\---

Rimmer begun to look forward to his daily moments with Kochanski. She had helped him more than the ships psychiatrist ever had. He could share things with her he'd never dared to speak about with anyone else.

With her help he begun to focus through the haze of his depression and had managed to write a short funny play. Writing it had taken a lot out of him, though and in an ideal world he could rest now. Sadly, in this world, rest was not on the cards yet.

Now the play was written he was expected to hold auditions and then rehearse the play.

This was a lot of pressure for a man undergoing a nervous breakdown.

Soon the pressure turned into an anxiety attack with Rimmer's mind imagining big, scary prisoners trying to kill him for turning them down. Big scary prisoners angry because he asked them to do a scene again.

Lister and Kochanski tried to make him see that it would probably just be the more “artistic” of prisoners coming out for this. This didn't placate Rimmer: there were no artistic prisoners, he felt.

\---

It was a long, hard slog. A lot of prisoners had signed up to audition as a joke and most of the others could barely read. Still, sheer perseverance saw Rimmer, Kochanski and Lister whittle down the potential candidates to ten that could talk coherently and read basic English.

In the week that followed they would select their final four.

“Glad that's over,” Kochanski sighed as she cleaned up her desk.

Rimmer nodded – he could weep with exhaustion.

Lister, though, seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed himself.

“I don't know ... I kinda enjoyed it.” he smiled. "I had a laugh, unlike old sour face ..."

Rimmer gave him a half smile back and shrugged. Why was that man always so smegging positive? He was certain he felt a migraine coming on. He sighed, he was jealous of Lister's attitude towards life, especially as it made that gap between them even deeper. If he'd been able to treat this whole situation as a laugh he could have had fun with Lister.  
The times he had tried to loosen up and be easy going were the times he and Lister had gotten along best. These were the times where Lister seemed to forgot about him not being the “right Rimmer”.

Slam!!

Rimmer was jolted from his reveries by the door being slammed open. A young – pretty – male prisoner walked in and beamed a smile at them. For some reason Rimmer felt an instant dislike.

“Oh no! Tell me it aint so! You are packing? Am I too late?” the man said, with a Russian sounding lilt.

“Yes!” Rimmer growled wearily.

Lister gave him a frown. “Oh come on Rimmer, be nice. Yeah, we were just going but if you're quick ...”

“Look, it is obvious that this man is late, very late. That clearly means that he will be trouble once we get to ..."

“Smeg, Rimmer. Why you gotta be such a bore|? We can fit in one more, can't we. This is the first looker we've seen all day.”

The pretty boy with the accent smiled at Lister, Lister winked back. The immediate resentment Rimmer had felt increased. An immediate resentment and anger towards this strange, handsome new guy. This, added to his bone-weary fatigue made him more obnoxious than he wanted to be.

“No, I'm sorry. Those signs have been there for ages. He's had plenty of time to audition. I think I'm allowed to call time. I am the smegging writer of the bloody thing.”

“Smeg, Krissy you tell him.”

The pretty guy pulled a “sad face”, obviously going for “adorable”, but not fooling Rimmer.

“Oh, the sadness. I ... I had the trouble: no poster in my wing. Only saw notice today. I love the acting. The escape from grey prison life. Please Mr Playwrite a chance!”

Kochanski rubbed Rimmer's tense back. “Oh come on Arnold. Listen to the poor guy. One more audition what does it matter?”

All eyes were on Rimmer now, making him feel extraordinarily self-conscious. Oh he had to give in, of course he had to. Lister would never let him hear the end of it if he didn't. Why did these things keep happening? All he wanted was his bed ... and for that guy not to stare at Lister like that.

“Yeah, go on then ...” He relented, internally adding a series of curses and praying the man was crap.

\---

He wasn't “crap”, far from it. Despite the thick accent he was the best they'd seen all day. He held a passionate monologue about sex that Rimmer vaguely remembered from a book he once read.

It was brought with fire and power. Rimmer would have been exited by it, had the man not performed with such a focus on Lister. Had Lister not stared back at him so intently. Rimmer closed off until the voice was just a drone and his surroundings just a blur. If he was the organiser, the director and the writer of this whole thing ... why then was Lister still in charge? He wondered.

Silence.

“Hey man, that was amazing. You got the lead!”

Wait, what did Lister say there?

“No, Listy. He hasn't! We've got to choose honestly from the list of ten!”

“Oh come on Rimmer, he's the best we've seen all week!”

“That doesn't mean you can just give him the lead. We've got procedures for that!”

Kochanski had noticed the anger stirring in Rimmer from the moment the new auditionee came in. and decided to try and stop the situation from exploding.

“Rimmer is right. We've got to keep procedure. Doing it differently would be unfair to the others.”

The pretty prisoner smiled, but Kochanski could see tick of anger around his mouth, a slight intuitive distrust stirred. She felt this man was not what he pretended to be.

“I see and I understand. Fair is important ...”

“Tell him now, tell him later, what's it matter?” Lister sounded annoyed. “He's got to get the lead as he's the best, okay. For once don't screw this up, Rimmer!”

Rimmer was shaking with anger, watching Lister storm out. Why? What had he done now? He'd given in to letting the man audition. Why was it wrong to keep procedure? Why had this annoying pretty boy turned up? Wasn't his life bad enough?

Furious Rimmer grabbed his writers file with such force the entire content spilled all over the room. To his frustration most of it landed at the feet of the Russian, who knelt down to pick it up. Rising up he, to Rimmer's embarrassment, begun to read from his work - out loud!

 _“I see you every day my pretty man_  
_Smiling as only you can._  
_You will never know_  
_As I ...”_

“That is private!!!” Rimmer hissed, his fury had risen to unknown and dangerous heights.

“You wrote?”

Without a word Rimmer grabbed his papers and ran out to look for Lister.


	3. Two Bit Cyrano

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rimmer meets the prison godfather - who has a "job" for him ...

“You, poetry boy!” A rough voice called out.

Rimmer froze. They were talking to him, it had to be him! No-one else in that room could read.

He had been trying to find Lister after the audition debacle, but so far had no luck. Fear knotting in his stomach he turned around slowly to find a rough looking giant of a man staring at him impatiently.

“Yes ...?” He squeaked.

“Follow me!”

Every fibre of his being wanted to run away. But for some reason his body betrayed him and he followed.

The unknown giant led him through long corridors, row upon row of steel and military grey, until they reached the deepest prison caves. The roughest most dangerous part of prison, a place that Arnold J Rimmer would never visit voluntarily.  
Scary looking muscle men and women leered at him from harsh looking confines. Hands grabbed at him wolf whistles rung his ears. A memory stirred and he panicked.  
  
Just when he was about to pass out from fear they reached a nice, comfy looking well furnished cell that looked almost like a luxury apartment.

Rimmer frowned in surprise: what fresh hell was this?

“Welcome ...” A familiar voice with a Russian lilt sung.

Rimmer swivelled round to find a pretty high cheek boned face staring at him: The Russian from audition? That man ran the prison? Oh smeg!! He thought he'd been cursing out a young, naïve prisoner. Instead he'd been angering the Godfather. He'd probably only been patient with his tantrum at the audition only to beat him up now or try and blackmail him about that poem.

Rimmer felt faint, he was certain he was going to pass out, he couldn't breath. He willed himself to keep the mist at bay, to focus on what the Russian man was saying. To his  horror he noticed the man was clutching some of the poetry from his file: Blackmail, it would definitely be blackmail.

“You, playwrite. Word man. I Oleg Petrovsky. I like your words. You get?”

Rimmer nodded, his voice having deserted him.

“I have job for you.”

Rimmer frowned. A job for him? He barely knew this man. He didn't have to smuggle drugs, did he? He was trying to keep what was left of his record impeccable.

“You in brig with young coloured man?”

Coloured? He didn't know anyone coloured, did he? Or did the man mean ...

“Coloured nice man from audition.”

Lister? He'd never thought of Lister as being coloured.

“Lister?” He wished his voice wouldn't squeak like that.

“Man with the pretty eyes and the braids?”

Rimmer nodded.

“Yes, the Lister, then.”

“Are you going to hurt us? We've never met before today! Why would you hurt us?”

The man moved closer to Rimmer and stroked his cheek.

“Oh you silly man. No, I'm not going to hurt you, yet.”

_“Yet?”_

Oleg came even closer and by now invaded far too much personal space.

“I want the pretty Lister boy.”

“What, why?” Grey begun to form at the edges of his vision again and the air deserted him once more. He felt scared, very scared. Then he felt ... nothing.  
  
\---

The next thing he knew was a comfy sofa and Petrovsky smiling down at him.

“Silly man. Why would you faint on me? You are quite safe here.”

“You ... you want to kill Lister?”

“Kill? No, I want to love Lister.”

Rimmer wanted to sit up sharply but realised that Petrovsky might not take to kindly to someone throwing up on his Persian rug.

“Love ... Lister?” he repeated, more weak than he'd wanted.

“Yes. Such a pretty young man, no more than a boy. Saw him before, from distance. He needs guidance, protection, luxury and friendship. I want to give him that. I want to care ... cuddle.”

Rimmer sat up in a flash in anger, all feelings of faintness and nausea forgotten.

“You can't.” He growled. “He's straight.”

Rimmer was furious. Loving Lister? What would that man know about loving Lister? _He_ loved Lister! He'd loved him from the moment they met and he'd never get a chance. Not because Lister was straight – he wasn't Lister had admitted to sleeping with a man or two, which had hurt. No, Lister could never love him because he was nothing but a bad copy of a copy of himself and Lister did not care for him. He had accepted it. But that did not man he was about to let some upstart male Babooshka doll have a go without a fight.

“Oh, no one is completely straight, my man. That is why I want you to woo him for me.”

Was he going insane? What was this man asking? Woo Lister? If that were possible he'd done it himself years ago.

“I ... I beg you pardon?” He licked his parched lips.

“Igor, tea for the poet.”

Rimmer watched in sunned silence as the giant hulk served and obeyed the pretty thin man wordlessly. He lay back down and closed his eyes. It was useless. The man was pretty, powerful and clever; what chance did he have? 

“What do you want me to do?” He croaked.

“I want you, poet man to write him love notes. Tell him what he would like to hear. Win him over for me.”

“I ... I don't understand.”

“Sit up and drink your tea, poet.”

Rimmer sat up without hesitation. He eagerly drank a few sips, the warmth and comfort of real tea calmed him a bit.

“My name is Arnold J. Rimmer, not poet. Why would you need me? You're pretty I'm sure if you'd just ask him ...”

“Ah, but I want to win him slowly, romantically. I have the style, the passion. But I don't have the poetic skills, Mr. Rimmer. You do. We could be the team and you'd help your friend.”

“You'd really be good to him. Help him ... protect him?”

“I'd treat him like a Queen. He'd share my jail, my wealth, my power.”

“Okay ... Let me think about it.”

“You have five minutes. Igor keeps time.”

Rimmer bit his nail. How could this have happened to him? _He?_ He had to woo the man he loved more than anything in the universe for someone else? For a man he'd resented from the moment he met him? What was he some cheap two bit Cyrano?

But ... wouldn't it be good for Lister? A pretty man that seemed to care for him? He had nothing to offer him. Lister would probably be glad to be away from him.

What did he have to lose? He could offload some of his emotions and Lister would get better status in prison. Listy was lonely and needed someone. This man could be good for him: he was pretty, clever and witty. He had luxury and even the guards obeyed his every whim.

Lister deserved someone good, even to just pass the time in jail. He could give him some joy. No one would force him, he'd make sure of that. All he'd do was write a few love notes, Dave could make his own choice.

Rimmer swallowed a lump away then nodded sadly.

“Okay, I'll do it. But don't force him. He has to want you by his own free will.”

“Deal ... Poet.”

What did he have to lose ... except the love of his life.

\---  
TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
